What can public employment services do to support the most vulnerable jobseekers?

The Council of the European Union’s Recommendation on the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market has led to a more comprehensive support to vulnerable jobseekers. However, in many Member States, those furthest from the labour market are still underrepresented among the clients of PES, and have a relatively lower access to active measures and services.

The online Thematic Review Workshop (TRW) for the Network of European Public Employment Services (PES Network), held on 28-29 September 2021, examined how PES can support hard-to-reach vulnerable (long-term unemployed) persons more effectively and, have more co-operation with other social services.

The TRW’s participants addressed the key issues in some of the crucial areas of support to vulnerable jobseekers (such as the better targeting of services, the upskilling methods developed specifically for the vulnerable or the possibility of increased contacts from counsellors) and exchanged on positive achievements and difficulties as well.

The contributions of Budapest Institute to the event included developing the background material to be discussed, as well as expert support to the workshop.

Márton Csillag (senior researcher at BI) in his thematic paper provided an overview of the key questions and issues related to the workshop. 

BI has given expert support to the programmes organised by the Network of European Public Employment Services before; for more details see below:

How can public employment services adapt their offer to the goals of the reinforced Youth Guarantee Program?

Lifelong learning, re- and upskilling of the workforce to prevent unemployment

Expert support for the new European PES Network

Assessing the performance of Public Employment Services

PES to PES dialogue in Europe

The ÖSB Consulting company has reached out to Márton Csillag to prepare the background material of the workshop. ÖSB Consulting collaborates with the PES Network in organising events, on behalf of the European Commission.